Saturday, March 29, 2014

He was the King. From all eternity he was absolute ruler
over all things – the one who was in control. Nothing existed except what he
willed and spoke into existence, and all things were dependent on him. And it
was his good pleasure to create the world, and when he created the world, a
world which he declared to be very good, full of rich green forests, deep
rivers and springing grasslands, he added one more thing – freedom! He could
have created a world that was completely as he willed it, without a thought or
action anywhere outside of his sovereign control, but, even with the
foreknowledge of what it would cost, he chose something very different, and
declared it to be good. And this was the morning of the world, shining clear
and beautiful.

But the clouds gathered and the world became dark. The man
and the woman used their freedom to turn away from his love into darkness and
death, and his beautiful world became a grim and painful place, full of thorns
and thistles and bitter labour. And his children walked away from him, and
continued to walk further away, into nightmare and horror. But still he
sustained the world in being, and the sun shone and the rain fell, and blessing
and promise took root even in the midst of their misery. And some sought to
turn back towards him, and follow the hope and the promise, but others saw no
substance in promises, and preferred the solid earth beneath their feet to the
hope of an unseen land. But even the best of them could not overcome the
darkness and destruction of death to get there.

And the centuries passed, and the long sorrow that men call
history unfolded, and there was no relief from darkness except the promise that
still hovered there. But the King had no intention of leaving them desolate, so
when the appointed hour arrived, he came into their world himself, not in his might
and overwhelming majesty , not to take control, as he could so easily have
done; but he came as one of them, as the least of them – he came as a tiny
child. And most disregarded him.

The years passed and he grew to manhood, and he was not as
other men (for all power and authority was his) and yet he was as other men,
with no beauty or riches, splendour or prestige to distinguish him. He spoke
truth into their confusion, and lovingly healed the hurting and the broken; yet
many hated him for his love and truth demanded that they change. And he, the
king from all eternity, let them take control, and surrendered himself into the
hands of his enemies, and they decided to destroy him. So they went through a
kind of legal proceeding, for they prided themselves that they were a civilised
people, and, having duly sentenced him to death, they proceeded to kill him in
the most barbarous way that they knew. And he surrendered to every pain, horror
and indignity and did not resist them, even though there were legions of angels
ready to obey the least of his commands.

And he surrendered to death and hell, and they buried his
body and imagined they were free. But there, in a deep mystery beyond human
understanding, he overcame death and hell, and they had to surrender to him.
For he was in control the entire time, and bent all things unto his will, so
that there should be nothing in all creation that could separate his children
from his love.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

She was an outcast and a nobody –
her own family wanted nothing to do with her, and the day that she was born
they didn’t even bother cutting the cord. Instead, they left her, still covered
in filth from the birth, exposed and abandoned to die by the roadside. She wasn’t
even a person to them, just a piece of detritus for the carrion birds to deal
with. Other babies might be tenderly cleansed and wrapped, but no one had
enough compassion on her to care if she lived or died.

He was the Almighty one, the King
of kings, and when he passed by he saw the filthy infant lying there, and bid
her live. He cleansed her with his own pierced hands, cared for her tenderly
and saw that she thrived. All that could be done for her was done, and as she
grew she became truly beautiful. And the time came when he passed by again, and
saw that she had become a woman. But she was still naked and no one had covered
her nakedness. She was alive and she was lovely, but she had absolutely
nothing.

So he took her to himself, and
became her husband. He clothed her and covered her nakedness, and adorned her
with the richest of jewels. There was nothing she owned that was not his gift
to her. And then he took her, in all her glorious beauty, and made her his
bride, committing himself to her with a solemn oath, and entering into covenant
with her. She became the object of his care, and his delight was in her. The
finest food, the finest clothing, was given to her, and she became a queen, and
the nations of the world acknowledged her beauty.

But she was faithless. She put her
trust in her own loveliness, rather than in the one whose love had gifted
everything to her, and turned away from her one eternal true love to commit
adultery with others, even using his gifts to bedeck the bed of her infidelity.
Her body was given to every kind of lust, and her heart indulged in every
possible idolatry, even to the sacrifice of her own children. And he declared
the sentence of his wrath upon her, and her suffering would be as dreadful as
her sin.

But this not the end
of the story, for her lover is her Lord and her Redeemer, and she will be
restored. And, she will be transformed. For he took her place and suffered for
her, and just as the first bride came from the first man, so she is reborn from
his pierced side. In this world she struggles, sometimes forgetting her true
identity and falling back, sometimes oppressed by the cruelty of others,
sometimes weak and confused. But he holds her to her course and sustains her
with the hope that is to come, the marriage supper that will be the fulfilment
of the ages. She will be clothed in fine linen, clean and white, his radiant
bride for all eternity. Upheld by the joy of that anticipation, she awaits his
coming.(see Ezekiel 16)

He had loved God’s law from his
earliest youth, it was sweetness to his heart and supremely desirable. He had
no desire to kill or to take another’s wife, and the Sabbath was a glad break
from the routine of running his business. He sought no other gods, and could
not imagine making a false accusation. When it came to the ritual law he
conceded that the priests were the experts, and he did exactly as they
instructed him. The thought of stealing or coveting was laughable – he already
owned more than anyone else he knew! He was honest enough to recognise that he
was privileged way beyond most men, and humble enough to ascribe it to the
blessing of God and not his own intrinsic superiority. Life was full, life was
beautiful – so how could he feel so empty at the same time? He was sincerely
puzzled, and when he broached the subject with the rabbis he knew, they were
equally puzzled: he obeyed the commandments, he was living the blessed life,
surely any remaining discomfort of soul must come from his own emotions?

But then he heard of a new rabbi,
some said a prophet, whose teaching was different and who did works of healing
wherever he went. This was his last chance to make sure he was doing everything
needful to obtain God’s favour, so when he learned the rabbi’s whereabouts he
ran to him (forgetting his dignity), fell on his knees before him, and
surprised himself with the words that came from his mouth, “Good teacher, what
must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now all the rabbis he had known
would be flattered by this form of address, but this one, apparently, was
impervious to flattery. “Why do you call me good?” he said. “Only God is good.”
Those words sat oddly on the young man’s soul, disquieting his expectations.
Apparently law-keeping was not enough to earn the accolade of goodness. But the
rabbi continued, asking questions like a doctor checking symptoms, and to these
the young man could answer in the affirmative. Truly he had kept all these,
truly he loved God’s law. And as they spoke he felt a warmth from the rabbi, a
vast kindness that would draw him in to wonder beyond his imagination.

But then came the
words that devastated him:“One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess
and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come,
follow Me.” Was this really the answer, that he should relinquish the very
things that he had been taught were the signs of God’s favour, leave his whole
life behind and follow an itinerant rabbi instead? How could he even answer
this? He turned away, dejected, considering, faced with a dilemma he had never
considered before. He had always seen his wealth as a fortress, his safe place
against the vicissitudes of life. His wealth shielded him from both pain and
temptation and gave him status as a man favoured by God’s blessing. But what
if, in this fortress, he was not a comfortable guest, but, instead, a prisoner?
What if, instead of being the way towards God, it was locking him away from the
truly blessed life? Was it really necessary to walk away from that shelter and
stand naked beneath the rain and wind of heaven? Did a man truly have to lose
his life before he could find it?

Saturday, March 08, 2014

I never expected another chance. Forty
years before it had all been over. So many hopes, so many dreams ... I used to
daydream back then, in that other life of mine, and imagine myself as the great
liberator of my people. Surely I was uniquely placed to do so, the only one in
the whole land of Egypt who could? Nobody else that I had ever heard of had a
despised slave for a mother, and a princess (Pharaoh’s daughter, no less!) for
a foster mother. I knew, and really cared about, the oppression of my people. I
had dried the tears of my sister and my mother; I had seen the lash marks on my
father’s back; I had the desperate prayers and pleas of their friends. I had
been there, in the huts of the detestable slaves, and I had seen their lack
compared to their neighbours. I had turned away in sorrow from the pain in the
eyes of women whose children had been thrown in the Nile. It was a shameful and
horrible thing that the inheritors of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
should have no land, no hope and no future.

Yet I had such privilege. As an adopted
son of the palace, all wealth and learning were mine, and with privilege comes
power. But for all my learning, for all my high ideals, when the moment came, I
proved to be a fool, and threw it all away.

It was, you might say, just another
day in Egypt. The sun was hot and tempers were short, and the pain of my people
ached in my breast as if I had swallowed a massive stone. Less and less did I
feel at home amongst the shaded rooms of the palace; and so, like a man who
cannot resist scratching an itch, I would wander down to the construction site,
where the latest draft of Hebrew slaves were bending to labour under the bitter
lash of their masters. It was not the first time I had seen a slave beaten, but
for some reason, in that moment, the cumulative injustice pushed me over into
blind rage, and, seeing there was no one around to notice, I struck down and
killed the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. I thought myself
undiscovered, but that delusion lasted less than 24 hours, before I found out
that it was known and not much longer before I found that I had to flee the
wrath of Pharaoh if I wanted to preserve my life.

And so I dwindled. Dead
to my hopes, dislocated from my dreams, I became just another nomadic shepherd
in the wild country of the desert. I thanked God for my wife, for my sons, for
the gift of freedom, but somewhere deep inside me the ache of my people’s pain
remained ... until the day when I met my God in the bush that would not burn
away. It is hard to believe, after so great a silence, so long a dearth, that God
himself should resurrect the innermost longing of my broken heart. Yet so it
is, He has heard, he has seen, He has called me and I must go. Once I went
forth in confidence, believing myself a chosen instrument of justice, and
everything I tried went horribly amiss. This time I will go in fear and
trembling, not believing in myself at all, but responding only to God’s
irrevocable call. Maybe this time the miracle will happen.

Thursday, March 06, 2014

for Lent this year I want to do something a little different. When possible, i want to write a short poem or meditation in response to one of the lectionary readings. We'll see how many I manage!The first one is on Psalm 51

Saturday, March 01, 2014

We are men who do what we are told. We have always believed
that by serving the High Priest we are serving God. We go where we are told to
go, we guard whom we are told to guard, we arrest those whom we are told to
arrest. So what are we supposed to do when it all changes? We knew Saul, we
knew he really hated those Christians, and the way he talked about them as we
journeyed, he had us quite convinced that they were hateful and dangerous
people who must be stopped and removed at once – a poisonous tumour on the body
of Israel. And then, there we are, on another hot, dusty day on the road to Damascus, when we suddenly hear a loud sound and there
is Saul on the ground, crying out something, while we stand around with no idea
what to say or do. We had had no orders about such things. Then, the moment
passes, he rises to his feet, but his eyesight was gone! We continued on our
way, very carefully, since a blind man’s horse must be led, but it soon became
obvious that Saul had completely changed his mind about these people, and no
longer wanted to pursue them at all. Instead he wants to join them now. Seriously,
we wonder if he has gone mad!

SAUL:

The wiser a man thinks he is, the more a fool he turns out
to be! I was so, so sure that I was right, that my hatred for these followers
of Jesus proved what a godly, zealous man I was, and that my zeal would win God’s
favour just like it did with the Levites who stood with Moses against the
immorality in the camp. How little I really understood anything about the God I
claimed to be serving! In the instant between one breath and the next my whole
world turned around, for I encountered the very Jesus I had been persecuting,
and learned that he was my God! A man
needs silence and darkness to process such things, and darkness I was given. In
broken penitence my body now wore the blindness that had so characterised my
arrogant spirit, but it was no longer terrible. The same God who had sternly
rebuked me had drawn me to Himself in tender mercy and let my eyes be darkened
for a space so that I might know that He was no fever dream, no delusion
brought upon me by the heat of the day, but my only life and hope and joy. It
is hard for a strong man to yield himself to be led and tended by others, but even
in that humbling there is relief and joy, for in my darkness I am beginning to
see truths that I never guessed before.

ANANIAS:

What
is a man to do when God asks him to take literally the command to love his enemies?
Well, he obeys, but with much doubt and fear in his heart! At least, since I cannot
speak for all men, that was my experience. God Himself came to me in a vision
and called me to go and restore the eyesight of Saul of Tarsus! How could such
a thing be? This was the man who had been our foremost persecutor! Could I trust
him? And also (for we who follow Jesus are already only too aware that God make
call us to martyrdom at any time) what of the issue of justice? Surely Saul
must be punished for the way he had treated God’s people? Yet God was calling
me to bring him healing! It took me much wrestling in prayer before I understood,
but when I did I was stunned afresh by the depths of God’s grace. Of course
Saul must be healed and restored, for isn’t this exactly why Jesus died? A mighty
work of reconciliation was done upon the cross, so that god might restore us to
Himself. Saul is just one picture of the way this works for all of us, as God
turns us around towards Himself, so that we may see his arms are open wide in
love and forgiveness. With gladness then, instead of fear, I went out to find
him, for Saul is no longer my enemy, he is my precious brother.

About Me

Mother of two grown up kids,and very long time married, after many years as a full-time mum, then a part-time theological student I'm now trying to be useful in my local church whilst working out what the next step is.I'm passionate about Jesus, treasure the people in my life and dream of being a preacher. I'm a would-be poet, a slightly eccentric cook, and an INFP (which must explain something).
And I'm a pickle: a weird shaped lump of something-or-other, a bit salty, a bit sweet, definitely an acquired taste, preserved by the grace of God and trying to add a bit of flavour to the blandness of modern life.